Living in our own place has given us the first real opportunity to grow our own food. We are loving that opportunity. Sarah is a silviculturist; her job is all about giving trees the best chance to grow tall and strong. She has the innate ability to cultivate plants, and I seem to have inherited some of my old man's green thumb.
Above: The beginning, early June (after the beginning of the beginning, digging up sod and building the beds).
Below: Progress, early July.
We have germinated, nurtured and consumed a multitude of green delights. Eating snap and sugar peas transported me to Shag Point, East Otago, circa 1983, a toddling Hinch plucking peas from plants and devouring pods and all. Two varities of radish, Pink Lady and White Sparkler, crisp, spicy, white fleshed beauties, have come and gone. We have kabocha, Japanese winter squash, swelling in size. Acorn squash have been a disappointment thus far, but the plant itself has spread from the edge of the garden bed out over the lawn.
Zucchinis are barbeque delights, caramelised goodness melting in our mouths. Beans are flush with pods, Broad Beans, Scarlet Runners, yellow and purple varieties called Black Valentine and Purple Peacock, and Edamame - Japanese soybeans - are progressing. Cucumbers, lettuce and a miscellany of leafy green vegetables have filled salads and sandwiches this summer. Carrots are booming.
We grew basil in pots on our balcony in Seoul, fueled by healthy doses of acid rain. The basil we're growing here in Campbell River is no comparison in flavour and freshness. Breathe that basil in. The scent rubbed onto the skin of hands when harvesting is enlivening. Sarah's made plush pesto. I've taken to adding a few leaves to my sandwiches, and it's a regular addition to salads as well. Coriander, or cilantro, has flavoured all kinds of dishes, along with chives - garlic and regular - lemon sorrel, shiso and spearmint. Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme round out the Simon and Garfunkel top four.
Tomatillos are begging to be transformed into salsa. We are still waiting on brocolli, a spring crop, though its leaves have joined our green salads. Peppers - Banana, Kimchi, Hot Portugal - tomatoes and potatoes are readying. I have big plans for potatoes next year, having identified better space for the lovely little tubers. Tomatoes have teased us the last month, seemingly ready to ripen for weeks but just beginning to blush now. We have rougly twenty varieties in the ground, including heirloom cultivars Ardwyna, Black Cherry, Black Plum, Black Prince, Brandywine, Costoluto Fiorentino, Green Zebra, Polish Paste, Sweet Million, and Yellow Pear. Cultivar names conjur vivid images. I'd drown in Brandywine.
Green Zebra tomatoes to the left;
Tomatillos on the right.
I've also planted hops, that essential ingredient of any respectable beer. I planted two types, one labelled Common Hops, a who-knows variety, and the other called Nugget, a high alpha acid, bittering hop. The Nugget has produced a decent crop of green scaled flowers, or cones. They'll be harvested and dried later in September. We have a number of raspberry canes in the ground, two blueberry bushes, and a Saskatoon berry shrub. A deer came along and nibbled the flowers off the Saskatoon earlier this summer. We aren't expecting rasp- or blue- berries until next year.
We've seen evolution, from green grass on the front lawn, to flush and full beds of soil and plants. And we're eating free food.
